Guest Steelworker2001 Posted November 6, 2003 Report Share Posted November 6, 2003 Any advice would be greatly appreciated When I decided to try Linux MDK 9.1 I had my M$ win XP Pro box as a stand-by. So my plan was to install MDK on a spare box just to get the feel of it. Well, I've fell in love with Linux, but here's where my problem begins. I've installed MDK on an old 6.4 gig HD and now I want it as my primary OS (screw M$). After spending countless hours configuring and setting up MDK I dread the thought of doing it again. Can I copy (disk image) my MDK 9.1 partition from the 6.4 gig HD to a recently purchased 80 gig HD? Im quickly running out of room on the 6.4. Will there be any boot issues to deal with?? Should I just do a clean install on the new HD?? I look forward to your suggestions. Peace, Steelworker2001 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris z Posted November 6, 2003 Report Share Posted November 6, 2003 hi there! there are several tools out there to accomplish what you want to do. if you want to use a free program try part image . it's a little tricky to get the hang of, at first, but nothing major that you can't understand once you read the documentation &/or ask a few questions here. i would use this as my first choice. (in fact i do use it) it also has a test feature, where you can write to your hard drive in simulation mode to check if your backup/image is corrupted or not. it works from both command line & in GUI mode. also, if you wanna use a non Linux specific program & spend some money, you could also try Norton Ghost . the caveat there is it will only work with ext2 & ext3 file systems on Linux. there's also many other one's out there. if you try a Google Search on Linux backup programs, you can choose for yourself. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 6, 2003 Report Share Posted November 6, 2003 There is an image program that will do this for you. (parted) I think the partition size has to match, though, so you'll have some creative partitioning to do once you transfer the data. In a situation as you describe, I would do a fresh install and copy the key files for the set up, making adjustments for the new partition information. Files like /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf, for example. Of course, this is coming from someone who breaks his box just for the theraputic value of doing it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtweidmann Posted November 6, 2003 Report Share Posted November 6, 2003 IIf you are just worried about your settings there might be an easier way of doing it. Most of the settings are stored in /home so you could copy of that directory temporarily to a CD or other computer then paste them back after re-installing on the new drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted November 6, 2003 Report Share Posted November 6, 2003 Post your current /etc/fstab.. That will give us your current partition structure on all mounted partitions. You need to recreate that partition structure on your new drive. You can make your mandrake partition(s) larger but not smaller on the new drive. The idea is to slave your new drive to your current one, create the right partition structure on it, copy the current mandrake partition(s) over to the new drive using either the "dd" command or partimage(more about that later), then swap your drives around and reinstall the boot loader on the new drive. Post back with the above info and I'll go into more detail. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Steelworker2001 Posted November 7, 2003 Report Share Posted November 7, 2003 Thanks for the FAST and excellent replies. But alas, I decided to go with a clean install. So far so good. I can remember clean installing M$ 98 like 10 times one night - so I guess I need to get just as good at Linux!! Thanks for the help! Peace, Steelworker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Steelworker2001 Posted November 8, 2003 Report Share Posted November 8, 2003 LINUX RULES!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted November 8, 2003 Report Share Posted November 8, 2003 Probably the easiest way would be to make your new partitions on the new hard drive and then do a copy of the old partition. You can boot off of CD1 and then mount the partitions you want to copy. Copy with copy -pax source dest Then you will need to go to your new root partition and modify your /etc/fstab and /etc/lilo.conf files.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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